me, amuses me, peaks my curiosity. the world is just littered with things to write about. it was of napoleon that he couldn't look at landscape without seeing a battlefield. if you are columnist, -- you can't look at the world without seeing column topics. they just come at u. >> visit book tv dot org to watch the rest of this program, where you can find it and all previous episodes of our weekly author interview program by clicking on the afterwards tap in the top of the page. >> good evening, everyone. >> good evening. >> welcome to the library. my name is vivian fisher, and i'm deputy chief of the pratt state library resource center here at the central library. this evening, i'm pleased to introduce our guests often, carrie kaye greenwich, who will

be in conversation with dr. nikki taylor. -- race, colonization, and diaspora. she's the author, a black radical, the life and times of -- listed by the new york times as one of its topics of 2019. the book is the first biography of boston editor william -- britton over nearly 50 years -- the massachusetts book award, and numerous other awards. black radical is also shortlisted for the stone book award from the museum of african american history in boston, and the -- history prize, and the award for best biography. greenwich received her doctorate in -- she's also the author of the

grimkes, the legacy of slavery in an american family. ratings have appeared in the radical history review, the new york, or the atlantic, and the guardian. at university, she also co-directs the african american trail project. dr. nikki taylor is professor of history and chair of the department of history at how it university. she has published four books. one entitled brooding over bloody revenge, enslaved women and lethal resistance to slavery, which will be released in 2024. please welcome dr. greenwich, and dr. taylor. [applause] >> dr. greenwich, i loved this book. this book really was just so

well done. and it really is timely, you know? it's just breathtaking research, it was just beautifully written, and i came away with such a respect for how you are able to weave together so many stories and biographies and play says. for those who don't know, i would hope that you would just start by telling us who they grimkes are, who the family is, and why they matter to american history? >> thank you so much. before i get started, i just want to say that you're one of my intellectual idols. i read so much of your work when i was in graduate school. it's wonderful. thank you for being here. i always start by saying that the grimkes where, during the early 19th century, famous for

the supposedly selfless act of the grimke sisters, the daughters of one of the wealthiest slave holding families in the antebellum south. sara and angelina ended up leaving their home in charleston, south carolina, in the 18 twenties, to become anti slavery rights activists in philadelphia. their biggest claim to fame during the early 19th century was their public disavowal of slaveholding, as well as their belief that white women, and specifically white slave holding women like themselves, had an obligation to fight against slavery in the south. in 1838, angelina grimke, when the younger of the two sisters, spoke before the massachusetts state legislature, acting coming the first woman to do so. she spoke out against -- slavery petitions, and she also

spoke about the need for women to take an active role in politics. they intermarriage -- or angelina intermitted with theodore dwight wealth, who was one of the most famous white male evangelical apple and she nests, very famous for -- partnering with evangelical anti slavery activists going through the burnt over district in upstate new york and ohio, founding schools, et cetera. so angelina married theodore, and by 1830, theodore, angelina grimke wild, and -- retired to their home in new jersey where they opened up a series of schools that were very very popular among abolitionists and reformers. -- the children have the child

family, and so that was the story -- a famous biography was written about them in the early 1970s by the women's rights activist -- and the story that is connected to that story, that is often missed by historians, or is categorized somehow separate from the story, is the story of the grimke sisters black nephews. they came from a family, the grimke sisters, of over ten siblings. one of those siblings was made henry f. grimke, and he had three sons by an enslaved woman named nancy western. two sons, archibald henry grimke, and francis james grimke, became phenomenal leaders and performers, the term at the time was raisman during that time period. archibald was a graduate of harvard law school, and

eventually became ambassador to what is now the dominican republic, and francis was a graduate of princeton theological seminary, and eventually became pastor of the most exclusive black church in d.c., the 15th street presbyterian church. our teammate and had his own daughter who became a famous play, author, literature of the 20th century, angelina weld graham key, who -- rachel, which appeared in the -- why the family is significant is a lot to get into. why this family is significant is that they illustrate, in my mind, the tension that americans have between their slave holding past, and the implications that that has, and that plays in the present. the family also is a microcosm of how that legacy impacts

african americans and the ways that they relate to one another, and the ways that they relate to politics, the way they understand blackness, the way they understand their social obligations, and that legacy is twofold, right? and the violence of enslavement and the legacies of black women who were exploited and raped by white men, and the -- families produced from that. what does that do to black consciousness and black ideas about blackness itself? >> thank you and i really appreciated the fact that you brought those to the two sides of the same family together. i think that is one of your biggest contributions. there are multiple contributions but that is one of the ones i appreciate the most. can you tell us a little bit about your sources?

i was just taken away by the depth in the details of your research. where did she get this information from. it's both sides of letters and so what were your main was a treasure in terms of the archival material that they have on african american people. family stories, a lot of what i was able to glean from. it's what he wrote herself.

dating in every day and that when i started doing research and then covid hit. . we ended up getting a ski, and hundreds and hundreds of. howard having just these boxes of the young angelina and all of your friends circle. the letters between the brothers and aunts. the letters between all of the grim key family contacts. it's how the truck publicly

about themselves, they talk privately about what they're thinking about in public. thank you howard it's wonderful wonderful. i was a pretty prominent minister in the midwest and all the letters he wrote other ministries about his wife's family. and charleston the records of the avery institute down there. they've records interest in themselves they were meticulous

records about the slave holding. , and save people and their house in relation to their own children. we have hundreds of slaves but it was a sciences we're talking about before. the way they didn't but it was enslaving people in the house. here is what it's like people had with their own children. it was kept in a way that i hadn't seen in flavored sources. -- >> one of the reasons why it was good that she brought these two sides of the family. you talk about the grim key sisters activism. you do the grim case customers

showing back room and right there like mariah stewart, the sisters and how they were right there on the forefront in philadelphia. >> you have one of the things that was immediately clear to me. just in terms of research for this book, is black activism that had gone on for 50 or six years at least the black community specifically in philadelphia there were militant in terms of protecting one another. so when the group the sisters came to philadelphia, the

letters in talks they would have about coming into rescuing this black unity. they had been doing that work for the fortune family it was early american republic. it was the american colonization society. they try to go on to the pennsylvania countryside they meet with the mariners violent riots against the black community. when they came to philadelphia, they went to quaker meetings and the grumpy sister approach. the black woman's response to

the grumpy sisters specifically the douglas family which is a leading family. the purpose women as well were very adamant that they were coming into a space it was an activist space. the black man he had already been doing it. francis james gimmicky, the backing of he's married into the family. his wife charlotte fortune. the granddaughter of james fortune. charlotte was extremely bright, intellectually curious. my mother had also been between

black and white man in north carolina. >> she absorbs this activists. this is one charles or activism becomes the first black woman to graduate from a state normal school. i was in seattle massachusetts. -- >> i really want to say in point out that is the root of the activism -- abolition that the grim crews are bracing. what the back of another creating. it >> was a push the gender notions rotation should be doing. >> exactly. women are pushing the limits of

women's rights activism at the time. also pushing the limits of male public facing activists at the time -- it's the arrival of black public schools that are employing black women teachers and educating another generation of new, black free people. i really wanted to ensure that one of the things this book does is really place these communities and actual black people at the center of endless labor. >> right, so digging in a little bit. i talked about this earlier. the colored early, the black really. they were called clearly. and you talk to us about how

they became a lead? one of their characteristics, their political commitments to the black community. we have stabilizes community in terms of their economic stability. >> one of the things fascinating. it's original object and more in people who have come before. i really want to delve into human cost amongst the black community. how sustainable is that long term, given the long term effects of a racial capitalist system where they're actually bodies encompassing the system. and, so wasn't enough for james for him to be this wealthy steelmaker? he's raising his children to become artisans in

philadelphia. and then the economy changes. snowmaking, shipbuilding shift. james ford and, because he built his fortune himself cannot rely like the sound makers it. and by the time he died, most of his money was gone. even though he had a huge fortune. he was carrying from the early 19th century. this black ali that had at one point an instance is an economic stake. they were comfortable. the gun keeps others become, you know, they're economically comfortable in washington d.c.. and yet the instability of, that given the racial economics of the american system. what does that actually mean in terms of the economic and political power? and, then how does that translate into how they relate to the black masses of people

who are not part of that elite. how they are created is complex. each region of the country emerges from a different genesis of a black athlete. i had this idea of much of this black ali emerges from the 18th century, first generation. but also the legacy of that being black women who are sexually exploited, raped by white men. it was a children who are produced by that. what does that actually mean to have wealth, but wealth isn't just money. it's other things, right? having money, having cachet and then can you actually pass that on? and what does that actually look like in a family? >> i was really shocked in the

book to see what happened to their wealth. you know? it is really shocking, the difficulties of holding on to black wealth. but what about proximity to whiteness? what did they gain from that proximity to whiteness? either genetic proximity and -- even the two nephews, proximity to the grimke sisters. what advantages to that offer in the 19th century society? >> huge advantages. the brothers, for instance -- the raised in charleston, the mother, nancy weston, is enslaved in charleston until the end of the civil war. her son's, once their white father died, the grimke family basically cast nancy western out to live by herself in support herself. she's basically working, doing laundry. she's related to a free back family, but she herself was not

free. as she's raising her blacks on, she's raising them to believe in this colored elite, as she called them. the colored westerns, who are her relatives who are free. when the civil war ended -- boys are in the early teens. nancy westham -- the boys -- eventually became -- written about -- in 1868. -- a system in any way that they could find. and so -- initially, but proximity to the sisters was --

paying for them -- this is eventually pay -- eventually start this correspondence with the brothers about how -- what schools they should apply to, where they should live, what career paths they can take. kind of become mentors to them. so that proximity and material way, at first, is a positive thing. on the other side, the issue becomes, what do the grimke sisters see in that relationship? given the way the sisters see black people? right? one of the things is that the way the sisters approached their mentorship, as they would've seen it, to their black nephews, is constant criticism. right? not accounting for the fact that the grimke brothers were enslaved by their own family.

the mother nancy weston is -- still working as a laundry person, still pretty poverty-stricken, and the sisters never talk about helping her. right? so the brothers are asking, what's gonna happen to our mother? and the responses, well, you're lazy. you need to work harder. and you shouldn't be asking for your mother to come. that's a lazy kind of way of being. the proximity to whiteness on one hand, like many in the class, it's giving them immediate material access. on the other hand, it was giving them -- i was constantly judging them. it was constantly forcing them to choose between the loyalty and obligations that they had to their own mother and their own family, then forcing them to -- in a way shaming them because the truth was, where do they

actually come from? they're very clearly the product of sexually coercive relationships between henry and their mother. henry was a notoriously violent person. and nobody talked about that. so my concern in writing that history was, well, what does that actually mean in day today? how did they then react to other black people who they've been told their whole lives they're different from. how did they react -- at the very same time, the majority of black people are not, given the circumstances of reconstruction and violence and segregation. >> exceptionalism. >> exceptionalism, right? the embrace that and say, no, we are grimkes? which is what they intended to do? or did they say, well, we are grimkes, but we have an obligation because we're also weston's, and black people who

are victims of the system, and we understand that enslaved past. right? >> yeah. that's really interesting. ters hadthen, what was really disheartening was to see some of the same attitudes that the grimke sisters had towards them. they then kind of mirrored those attitudes towards the masses. the darker complexion, lesser educated, poor masses of african americans. could you talk about that a little bit? >> yes. so i found that the way that the brothers talk in their letters about the black community that they very sincerely claimed to serve, much like their white aunts -- this was not saying, i, ha gotcha, they were not actually since here. it is sincerely believed, much like their white aunts, that -- raisman. they use that at the time. there were sacrificing themselves for the race. they were running a church out of a grocery -- working at the westboro

hospital for the insane, and ensuring that african american patients can be admitted there. their founding the nwa cpp, they're doing all these public things. and, yet the way that they -- they referred to his darker skin, these very disparaging terms, that these people were last. they weren't like those amongst the exceptional. and that their job is the exceptional ones was to lift them off. it was kind of this announcement of, what is this a deal of a racial uplift ideology -- considering yourself a black person closer to the white -- >> what was at the rate of that? was it purely colorism? or was it just that they felt -- they were not respectable enough? respectability politics? there was a mixture of both? >> i think it's a mixture buff. i think it was colorism. this idea of respectability at all costs. so much so that there is this

ladders that they go through between the brothers about criticizing black d.c., and blaming negro d.c., as they called it, of course they themselves are black -- accusing negro d.c. of losing clout amongst white d.c., because too many of them don't present them selves well in public. these are real conversations they're having amongst each other. frank is having them with his congregation. and, so it's colorism. it comes from the fact that their whole lives were built around in a city. and he was raising them to think of themselves as exceptional. because otherwise, how else would she put supposed to raise them in the shadow of the grimke family and their circumstances in charleston? >> so, what hope, if we look at somebody like the grimke sisters, and we see that these are well-meaning, well-intentioned whites, white women who are abolitionists, who have taken in their nephews, funded their education, really

taking them into their homes, but yeah, they still harbor these deeply prejudiced ideas, and sometimes even peddled in racist tropes and stereotypes. so what hoped we have for interracial alliances if we look at people like that, and they feel at this project? >> yeah, i would say the hope, i think it comes from black communities themselves. in that the work to be done by the sisters might have been -- challenge the violence in a very real way. and so, perhaps that was where the fight lay. right? perhaps -- it's like back in the 60s, when people would say --

1965, 1966 -- white people going into their own communities and working with those communities, where racism ended up -- and the real sort of deliverance or hope for black communities is -- and what that -- it's not the people who are heads of the churches, are the heads of the black school board. it might be the actual majority of the people who are in the community. so i took that as the lesson, and that seemed be the theme from the 18 30s to the 1930s. when the black community leaders look to and talk to the majority of black people in the community about what it is that they needed unwanted and all these things, that was where you can make a step forward. right? as opposed to dictating what those people want.

right? which is very paternalistic way of thinking. right? >> and on the other hand, what about lessons that we >> that's things might gather or that we might gain as gather or again as a black community from a black community from the sun the so-called colored elite in terms of that division. in terms of you know reaching out to other classes of our communities. socioeconomic classes. >> i would say we need to understand that no amount of black success as when it gets all out of racial mess. as i was writing this book i sort of, like why can't we just talk about black success. historically that just hasn't delivered people from the mess

of american capitalism. it's never done good for the community, historically what might it mean to envision something different or we don't make that the goal? we don't make that really a marker of success. from a holistic and historical standpoint, that's actually not doing much. it's pretty shall. both family, dad they did not have as much of the wealth as a heads beginning of the 19 hundreds. not through any fault of their. on the economic times changed. great depression, happened they survive that more than most people. but that's a huge blow to the black and middle upper classes. we go to the 1780s. thousand eight the same thing happens. we need to look beyond this existential story.

>> thank you so, much we have time for the audience questions now. >> if you have a question please bring it to the microphone. >> i know it's raining cold so thank you for coming. >> hi, my name is lisa can you hear me? >> i think it's so much information so many letters because, through history here about selective letters being destroyed. the ones that people want to be seeing the scene. if you were to take all of your knowledge and look at the kentucky sisters. if you could paint a better picture about who they could've been.

what would you think made them better or more effective for everyone? >> i'm i think in a way, the white grumpy sister story the question should be why and how that story has come to influence the way we ignore the culpability of white slave holding women with the institution of slavery. so, what could the sisters have done? i go back to what it would've meant if the gunky sisters when they went to philadelphia responded when there's a huge anti-back right outside their door. three blocks from where they did. they never talked about any of

that. so, what would it have meant if that's where they started their activism? many people rioting people they knew they were going in and tearing down black neighborhoods, burning it down. both out of meant that's where they began? what are the stories of enslaved people in the household, the grim sisters just like slavery, obviously. but what would it have meant when they went to philadelphia there is some process by which they tried to help relieve the hundreds of people who are still enslaved. they're being horribly disfigured in abused and their own household. what was that it looked like? i think it tends to happen is into slavery activist at the time we tended to see black

keep a lot of people but as victims and the means to an end in terms of redemption and reform. so, what would it have meant to actually said that we were slaveholding white women, were coming to philadelphia. it's one of the black cities in the country at a time. it's not like they don't know the black people are free. what if they said, what does the back mean to the actually want, right? listen to the black women that you see all the time. they had no response to that kind of circumstance, even when they're writing their amazing -- what if they responded to that? i think that is where the grim key sisters disconnect comes from. the disconnected from their own class. they were very eager to

encounter black people as victims. as that famous type was made. am i saving a brother, with my hands raised? it's a very comforting image in a way. what happens back it will come to the room and have opinions of their own? what is he wants to their own schools known curriculum? they say, no it's not strategic choice is actually a real process and that would look totally different. , right? if that had been the approach, opposed to concentrating on the redemption of themselves. that's a region where a lot of their anti slavery thought came from. >> my name is jeffrey. that is a fabulous top, i look forward to reading the book. if i could, i'd like to ask two questions. the first has to do with the mention of black abolitionist women in baltimore's, and what

skin. was there any connection between the keys and frances harper? >> secondly, just to get that in. this has to do more at the rim keep rather the whole struggle between booker t. washington. he was advocating for the activists for advancing black civil rights. where the grim key brothers have come down in that larger political debate going on in the black community. i'm >> that question. the foreign family, they knew francis hollen. they knew her uncle. watkins was in baltimore. he helps all black newspapers in philadelphia as well.

they knew each other. how deeply a friendship came. i didn't find any evidence of, that they definitely knew each other once you want to salem. she actually writing corresponded with france on whose premier black poet at the time. a big connection at the two. the grim key brothers were both. grumpy was friends. archibald graham kyi was a political independent. it was race not party. he was not beholden and tied at the propublica party. it ended up voting with the black party. it's dealing with the cleveland

administration. in the book, i point out the dichotomy through the boys was not the rivalry that we think of. they did talk to each other all on the schools of blacks are at the moment -- this is very radical at the time. all these people talking conversed thrown another. by the time we got 1905 in 1906 with the brownsville incident in texas. they began to question allegiance.

is that the public facing accommodation. at this point, archie had been helping facilitate scholarship programs. so, even though publicly archie was critical. also, critical of dubois. behind the scenes, they're all working together, right? in terms of this elite black people that i talk about. that being some type of contest or disagreement between them. and boston is a huge issue between the back community. and d.c. in this particular community. he stayed with francis often when he visited the city.

it is kind of the ways there >> are constant conversations one another. good evening. thank you for doing the difficult research to bring about such an interesting book. i have two questions. i first heard of mr. archibald grimke when i was reading the book like -- white lies about friends this way -- did you ever find research or data -- any interactions with harriet tubman or william still? and what came about there if there was any findings there. and i also wanted to know, how come the brothers -- instead of their mother's last name? >> it's for a stinging questions. nancy weston, according to her

son, -- neither read nor way. this was according to her son's recollection in the recollection of family members who are the westerns, was that nancy was adamant that her sons were colored westham's, as she called them, her free family, but they were grimkes as well. there's a lot of historians who've done a lot of work on that. there's a book by trucker myers, it's about free black women interested in how they negotiated their lives within this very racially and sexually violent charleston at the time. she was somebody -- nancy was somebody who definitely saw around her, particularly her own family, black women who had managed to become free or negotiate freedom through their relationships with white women. her own sister, lydia, had sons

with a family called the cardoza family. they were a slave holding family, but they sent the black women they had children with to the north. that meant those women and children lived free, even if they weren't legally free. and so, all this to me, when i was sort of piecing back why she would call her her children grimke, was that she was concerned with and grew up in lived in a world of charleston and which the possibility of claiming the grimke name, there was a possibility in this world of charleston at the time, that they could become, like, the cardoza's, in which the white father eventually realized that he had these sons, that they were getting older, and he sent them north. right? and those sons then had a different life than living in charleston. henry grimke didn't do that.

we know he didn't do that. we know given all the evidence that he probably wasn't capable of doing that. but as a mother with -- nancy weston was that she had a child before, and that child was sold. and we don't know what happened that child. and given that fact, just as a mother, what do you tell your sons who are living an existing in this world where -- living as free. some of them ended up going north. they had white fathers. what do you tell them? you might, as a parent, -- i would say it's a pretty accurate one. could be that, you know, you're giving your children these hopes, and an idea that they can escape with aaron. right? so the grimke brothers, by the time they got to lincoln, they were by all accounts very proud,

very well read. i hate using that term, but they could be, they could, right they could recite. they wear, you know, southern gentleman. which is what she wanted them to be. so that they could at least imagine something beyond a circumstances. so she succeeded in that. they wear grimkes. but the legacy -- the book is about, what's the legacy of that? how free where they? we know they went free until the end of the civil war. >> i wanted to know if there is a connection with the grimkes sisters and the harriet tubman. and the other abolitionists that were in philadelphia at that time. >> so -- good friends with the -- the white grimkes sisters, except for three of the women, didn't have a lot of contact

with black abolitionist people in the field. and by the 1839, 1840, they wear, for all intents and purposes, retired from the public. she had very trying pregnancies. she basically lived in jersey with her sister, sarah. [inaudible] >> so, the [inaudible] sisters, i would, say we are still involved with abolitionist circles. they still talk to katie stanton. they were educating those people's children in their house, and their school, and they had some of the descendants of the family as black students in their school. the school was integrated. but in terms of a relationship, in terms of activism and

abolition, with the stills and the other black abolitionist, harriet tom, and there's nothing specific about them having a specific relationship by the time you get to the 1840s and 1850s. >> are there any other questions? >> think you for this remarkable work. i can't wait to read it. let's give carrie and and nikki -- kerry and nikki taylor a warm round of applause. here's a quick look at some recent reviews in national publications. the washington post book world publishes every sunday. they recently looked at novelist hall auster's book, bloodbath nation. it looks at gun violence in the u.s., and is described by reviewer alex couple wings as a

sobering, impassioned plea to end the cycle of shootings, restrict the availability of guns, and, as auster writes, conduct an honest, gut-wrenching examination of who we are and who we want to be as a people. >> timothy sanders new book is called freedom's furious. how isabelle patterson, rose wilder lane, and i knew rand found liberty and an age of darkness. and the national review magazine says that it, quote, drives deeply into the political and economic currents that informed the three women's work to revive individual-ism. i i, william f buckley described the three novelists as the three furious of libertarianism. the new york times book review recently looked at freedoms dominion by jefferson cowie of vanderbilt university. according to the reviewer, the

book is essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand the unholy union more than 200 years strong between racism and the rabbit clothing of government. and also, in the new york times, columnist carlos lozova reviews mid america. historians take on the biggest legends and lies about our past. the editors of this book are -- karlus writes that mid america, quote, raises where the arguments about the use of history in the nation's political discourse, foremost among them that the term revisionist history should not be a sailor. and a review in the wall street journal of the hong kong diaries, written by chris paton, who is the last british governor that providence. there was reviewed by former journal publisher gordon croquettes. it's a book that details mister